Finn
by CapgrasFregoli
Summary: The story of a boy whose obsessive fears make it near impossible to live in a Pokémon-obsessed culture. Rated T for suicidal thoughts and occasional bad language. OC.  I certainly do not own Pokémon. Why would you think I did?
1. Introduction

My name is Finn. I'm fifteen years old. I live in Violet City, home to Violet City Gym and an important academy. But I'll never go to that academy, and I'll never go to the gym. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I don't think I'll ever be able to train Pokémon.

I wish I didn't live here. I've been to Goldenrod City a few times, and I like it there, except for all the strays. I stopped going there two years ago, when my parents saw me run away in terror from a friendly Teddiursa. It's not that bad here, I guess. In Goldenrod City, you can just live your life without having to get close and personal with the Pokémon. I like them, believe me, but I can't get close to them. I'm always scared they'll attack me, or bite me with their nasty mouths. It's a stupid fear, I know, but still. Here in Violet City, the kids at the academy are always spotting me in the street and trying to introduce me to their Pokémon. When I decline, they always give me weird looks and lecture me about how I need to stop being so uptight and cherish Pokémon and stuff. I can cherish them fine, but to I have to touch them?

Even if I wasn't afraid of being bitten or scratched or burned or poisoned, I wouldn't be able to train. How do they keep track of which Pokéballs hold who? For that matter, even I wasn't afraid of Pokémon hurting me, I'd be afraid of hurting them. I remember overhearing one kid at while I was at the coffee shop, and he was talking about the cruelty of putting a collar on an Arcanine. What's going to happen if I screw up and the Chikorita gets upset and runs off, or someone won't go in his ball and I need a leash, huh? What if I need to put claw covers on that cute little Teddiursa? The other trainers will think I'm an idiot or a jerk. I can't deal with that. But I don't even have to worry about that, because I'm busy crossing the street from some kid and his cuddly little Pokémon.

I don't really know what to do. My parents have sort of given up; they're too busy running their stupid Poké Mart, and all I do now is stay inside and draw and read and stuff. I'm getting too nervous to go outside now. It's trainer season. So many kids are walking around, and I don't know what will happen if they see me and see I've got no Pokéballs. They'll think, "What did that kid do with his life?" And then maybe they'll pity me. Or avoid me. Or get preachy. I can't decide which is the worst. But what am I going to do with my life?

My name is Finn. I'm fifteen. I live in Violet City. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. And I don't know what to do.


	2. Ill Rambling

WARNING: this chapter portrays some of the more graphic and disturbing parts of Finn's illness.

My throat burns with the pain that only rushing acid could produce.

What brought the acid and saliva and slush running from my throat? To be literal, my fingers, running against my gag reflex, less lightly because this isn't my first time. But to be specific, it was a Totodile. It was a happy-go-lucky baby Pokémon aiming to play. And I got caught in the crossfire.

So, one kid's preening over his new Totodile and the other is patting her Azumarill, and oh look how cute, they're play-fighting. I'm walking on the opposite street because those things have teeth like nightmares, and then Azumarill squeals its name and a powerful blast of water sprays me.

Now, for those who don't think about it, that water comes straight out of its mouth. Past the nightmare teeth and out of some gland or something, but it hurts and it ruins my book and I'm so shocked that it gets in my mouth and I swallow some.

So I run home and make myself puke up everything I ate today and the nasty water that came out of a baby's body. We don't think about it. But it's there. Another book goes in the trash courtesy of an arcdamn Pokémon, and I think I was going out to do something important, so I don't remember what. So I go back that way so it can come back to me and the trainers are still there. And one of them does something that people don't do to me enough, or maybe do too much but I don't know.

"I'm so sorry! Chompers is still kind of unruly ever since I picked him up. Did he ruin your clothes or anything?"

I'm about to say something but then I remember the vomit on my breath and the stains on my teeth and the sores in my mouth. So I shake my head and keep walking. But that doesn't happen often. Is this a trend? Maybe if I go out again tomorrow I'll run into that kid and make my own apologies, But he isn't there the next day.

This is what I do. I make myself an outcast. Sometimes I have panic attacks. Once, a Growlithe rubbed against me for a second before its trainer came along. And so she said hi and all that, but I was suppressing every instinct in my body to run away and shower until my skin melted, because that Growlithe was wet and I don't know what from. So I sounded nasty and stilted because that puppy's barks sounded like a million Beedrills scratching up my brain.

I wish I had a shirt that said, "don't touch me."

Sometimes I don't know whether my thoughts are my own. If I said I was schizo, would they just call out a Hypno and admonish it? Or would they help me?

I wish I could stop thinking. Can I pretend to be happy, or at least admit that I'm sick? What's worse, fear or shame? Which choice will make them go away? I don't know if I can even keep on doing what I'm doing (avoiding people).

Would anyone believe me if I said I was sick? What if I said that I wanted to die? When I look in the mirror, my eyes are hollow, but no one looks into my eyes anyway. My sickness isn't invisible, but no one seems to have seen it anyway. What if I had scars?

What if I went to the Silver Conference and jumped into the path of a Charizard's flame? What would they say?

I don't know now, so I'll walk home and throw up again and again, and maybe weep-that's more painful and shameful than acid waterfalls.


	3. Skinny

I'm underweight. I have vivid nightmares of my ribs tearing through my skin, or my guts falling out. But I can't gain weight, for a number of reasons.

First of all, I don't sleep enough. I wake up from nightmares every night, or I can't lie down because I need to wash off whatever scum I'm worrying over, or my skin hurts too much from the shower. And because I don't sleep enough, I have little appetite.

Secondly, I smoke. Sometimes, it's the only way to calm down. It seems like something I wouldn't do, because of fears of lung cancer or whatever. But the calmness is worth it. Some nights, I sneak out of the house to smoke on one of the town routes. It's a bad habit, but it's one of my only ways to relieve tension and fear.

Lastly, I vomit a lot, due to run-ins with eager water Pokémon or concerns about food poisoning. My knuckles are all bruised and scarred from sticking them down my throat and hitting my teeth. I've come up with tons of tricks to get rid of vomit-breath.

So my skin is stretched tight over my ribs, and my cheeks sink in ever so slightly. My spine sticks up through my back, so you can run your fingers down the bumps of vertebrae. I'm not even wiry-I've fractured bones about five times now, and I can't run without wheezing.

I certainly stick out from the muscled, healthy trainers, with their skin rosy from being out in the sun. I sometimes see them picnicking on rich and nutritious food. My main sustenance is toast.

One night, I sat down to dinner with my parents as usual. They were eating salad with chilled noodles and tofu. But at my plate was a tremendous cut of meat and a tall glass of frothy milk.

"We think you need to gain a little weight," said my mother, cheerfully. "You look like a Bellsprout," teased my father.

"What is this?" I'm always wary about foods.

"It's nutritious Miltank milk and a Tauros steak! It's pricy, but it'll bulk you up in no time!"

I ate up my dinner, which was tasty, but left me with a stomachache. Mom tried to push Custap berry pie on me, but I insisted that I was full to bursting.

When I went to bed that night, I suddenly started thinking about my stomach bulging and bursting open through my thin skin. It was a quick image, but it stayed. Blood and semi-digested food everywhere. Stomach acid burning my skin as it splatters out. My limp body crying out for help.

I have numerous methods of masking my retching. I put on some loud, droning music and stuck my finger down my throat. The splattering stomach acid came true, but I felt relieved when I was done. I scrubbed the toilet to eliminate the smell, showered for a long time, and brushed my teeth like mad until my mouth smelled like mint-tinged vomit. So I reached into my desk drawer. My parents aren't the prying type, so I keep my cigarettes in there. But for special occasions, I have a bottle of Shuca berry brandy. It has an intense fragrance, and I drink it if the vomit smell is overwhelming, or if cigarettes aren't doing enough to calm me down.

I don't usually eat a lot. But I'm not anorexic, and I'm not bulimic. I'm just prone to horrific nightmares and visions of all manners of death. Toast is the safest option, honestly.


	4. Origins

A/N: I feel that I need to elaborate on Finn's general obsessions and compulsions a bit more so it isn't just a phobia.

I think I realized I was afraid of Pokémon when I met one in person, but I've always been messed up. I think I was…what was it, eight? Nine? Well, one day, as I went home from school, I wondered if my mom would be there when I got home. She was always home when I came home, right? What if she wasn't there? What if she was gone forever? What if she was run over and I saw her corpse in front of the house? What if she killed herself for some reason and I would come home to an empty house, calling out for her, and eventually come across her body in the bathtub? It was really scary. Mom was always there, right?

Well, as I was walking home, I kept thinking. She was home that day. I didn't tell her about it, but I felt very relieved. But the next day, it happened again. What if she was gone? It happened again and again, and I started getting scared to walk home. I could not stop thinking about it. What if she was gone? During one of these walks, I stared at my left foot as I walked, and it was sort of comforting. But as I looked it, I suddenly started feeling like I was doing it wrong. I stood still for a second, and moved my right foot so I could decide how to put my left foot down correctly. And when I reached home, I realized that I had totally stopped thinking about my mother. So the next day, I kept focusing on my left foot, but it got harder and harder to do it right, because if I did it wrong, then I would get distracted and start thinking about my mom again.

My brain trained me to put my left foot down "right," (no pun intended) but the thoughts and fears kept coming. It got harder and harder to put my foot down correctly. So this went on for a few months, and then I couldn't walk home anymore for a while because I got sick. It was a just a flu. Not a big deal. I wasn't too bothered at the time. But after I got better, I watched another boy (I don't even remember his name-I think he's a trainer now) fall sick. He coughed and heaved violently, and vomited a little. He cried about how much his head hurt and how his body hurt. I was terrified. I hadn't felt too bad, but this boy was in hell. I ran to the corner of the room and started whimpering. The teachers were trying to call his parents and get him home and there was chaos all around. Eventually the day ended, and I went home. I couldn't even think about my mother because I was thinking about that scene, and if the boy was OK, and all that. I didn't know what to think, but I was up all night with that image rattling in my head. I was told later that he had the flu. I immediately knew that I gave him the flu, and he might die because he was so sick. He got better a week later, but that didn't change my mind. So I started bathing more. And showering. And if anyone I knew got sick, then I would clean myself even more.

So how did I become afraid of Pokémon? I'm not totally sure myself. I went to Goldenrod City with my parents and ran away from a Teddiursa, I remember, but I think that was later. I think it was when my parents' friends' son visited home after some kind of Pokémon competition. He showed me every one he had captured and raised. He liked Grass types. He had a Vileplume that he was really proud of. He had raised it from an Oddish and everything, and he bragged about how strong it was and how many battles it won. I was about to pet it, when his mom warned me that it was poisonous, and it could release clouds of toxic pollen. That was definitely scary: what if I spread the stuff and got people sick? What if people died?

It's all sort of muddled, but my fear of Pokémon grew and grew, and even though I still had compulsions about other stuff, this sat directly in my mind. It got worse as I grew older, because then I started being expected to become a trainer. People were disappointed, and so I stopped hoping that I would be able to master my fears. Everything got worse. I got depressed and started feeling empty all the time, and even guiltier than when the boy got sick. I degenerated, becoming thin and insomniac and paranoid. My fears have gotten worse and my brain gets harder and harder to satisfy. What am I going to do?


	5. Just a Thought

A/N: The title is actually a song by Gnarls Barkley. I didn't originally intend that, but it just popped into my head.

I think my parents finally realized that I have a problem. But I think I realized that no one cares about my problems. They've figured that something's wrong, but I don't know what they're going to do. Maybe they'll ignore me, just like every other damn trainer does. I've always thought about suicide. Maybe Pokémon-assisted suicide, just for the sheer irony.

I'm sure my fear is out of self-preservation, but I'm growing more and more inclined to kill myself. Why am I afraid of touching disease-ridden creatures when I'm devoted to death anyway? I guess I want my death to be as quick and painless as possible. A Scyther would do the trick. It could slice my head right off. Or a Scizor could crush my head in a second with its massive claws. Or I could get something to target me with a blast of vaporizing energy.

But I still don't get why I can't get myself out of my room to find death. I'm too afraid to go outside, but I don't know why. Killing myself would be the strongest thing I have ever done. Peeling myself off of my bed requires more immediate strength, though. Maybe, if I stay here for a while, I can work out a plan that'll be executed (heh) as smoothly and painlessly as possible. If I don't know what to do or where to go, someone with good intentions could catch me. I don't want that to happen. Anything that could my life is to be avoided.

I'm going to go now. If I don't, my nerve will shrink to the size of a pea. I'm going into the forest, where no one can catch me.

If I can get up first.


	6. Emotional Documentation

I decided to keep a little journal, so I would understand how to put my emotions into words. I can't really speak, you see. I can't come up with things on the spot. It's severe introversion. So I found a notebook and clumsily wrote over the scattered pages. Just thoughts and hopes and dreams and things I wanted to say, you know, so that if I needed to say them, or if I ever got the chance to say them, I could turn them into speech. So I wrote, but writing wasn't always easy. I had to rewrite, and tear out pages, because some of these things were a little too personal. It was a private diary, but maybe someone would take it. Maybe my parents would see it and get a little too curious. Actually, that's unlikely, because my parents don't seem to know or care about anything I do. Sometimes, my entries were eloquent. Not beautiful, never beautiful. Could I ever do something beautiful? Eh. Others were just single words, like answers to hypothetical questions.

"_Lonely. Isolated. Separated. Despair. Fear. Hopelessness._"

But who would ask? No one. Some others were clarifications. Explanations.

"_I can't pet your Cyndaquil because it might flare up. I can't hold your Totodile because it might bite. I can't see your Kadabra because it could hurt my mind._"


	7. Disappointment

Today was good. I didn't have to go outside for any reason whatsoever. I think my parents have finally stopped trying, thank Arceus. I'm pretty sure the influx of trainers has dwindled. League season is over. But that doesn't stop the occasional new kid with his or her brand new starter, bright-eyed and enthusiastic.

I fucking hate them.

I remember when I turned 10. That was the worst day of my life. My parents woke me up early and prepared breakfast for me, all ready for me to go to the local professor. And I said no.

I've never seen anyone so disappointed in my life.

They took me to the lab anyway. I fought, but they dragged me there. They tried to convince me right there in the lab, and the professor too. It was really early and no one had taken a starter yet. He let out the grass one, the Chikorita. I ran out because I had heard that they let out spores or gas or something from their head leaves. I ran out of the lab, but I couldn't bear to return home. So I ran off to one of the town routes and cried to myself quietly, and muttered soothing things to myself until I felt better-I don't remember how many times I muttered the same thing to myself, but when I could finally stand up, the sun was setting-and I walked home dreading my parents' reaction.

They said nothing. We had a tense and silent dinner. And the next morning they told me that I should reconsider my decision to stay home.

And then again. And again. They told me over and over that I needed something to do while all of the other kids in town were heading out to be Pokémon masters. They told me I needed direction.

They've been telling me that for a good five years. The only direction I'm going is down. I have nothing to do. I can't go to school. I can't make friends. I can't do a single goddamn thing.


	8. Phones and Bones

What a nightmare this week has been. My cousin in Kalos just started on his Pokémon journey and he hasn't stopped fucking texting me about his Fennekin and it pissed me off because every time I got a text documenting the precocious adventures of Blaze or whatever its name was, I would have to go through all my from him and count how many words they had and copying them to my clipboard if they had an odd number, counting them twice if they were about Pokémon. So if he texted me twice in the span of five minutes, it meant I would have to keep scrolling back again. And again. And again. And I couldn't take it anymore and I might have ended up texting him a tirade of angry and scattered emotions peppered with a little more swearing than is reasonably appropriate for a ten-year old boy. When I heard his response chime, I braced myself.

"Chill!" It said. "Don't get mad at me just cuz u couldn't go on ur journey! Stop being so jealous of me!"

I threw my phone against the wall.

When I picked it up again, the screen was cracked, a cobweb of fractures that made most texts nigh illegible.

Shit.

How do I explain that to my parents?

Oh, but that wasn't all. This weekend actually has been a literal nightmare, because every time I go to sleep all I see and hear are voices taunting me and mocking me for my weakness and my weirdness and my illness. So I haven't exactly been doing much sleeping. Caffeine makes my compulsions worse, so I've been keeping myself up with the glare of my computer screen and occasional freezing cold showers (ie: mildly cool showers because I'm getting dangerously thin and I'm cold all the time). Walking also helps, but I can only really do it during that brief period of time where I know for a fact that absolutely nobody would be wandering the streets. I feel like I'm freezing. Is it winter? I feel like I've lost track of the days, of the seasons. Am I still fifteen, even? What if my birthday passed by and no one told me? I'll have to check the date later. But the cold isn't winter, probably not. It's probably July and I'm just cold because I'm approaching that skeleton stage.

I don't have an eating disorder, I swear. I have a lot of eating rituals that are just exhausting and not worth doing, and I'm not really hungry very often anymore. Even when I took the time to get through my eating compulsions and have some mint chocolate chip ice cream, which is one of my favorite foods, I couldn't enjoy it, and I couldn't even eat more than one spoonful. So I haven't really been eating, because that's way too much work for too little reward. If it gets critical I'll eat. Actually, wait, shit, what if I die? What if I actually starve to death and no one notices? What if my family only notices when it's too late and I'm growing fur and my actual hair is falling out and the muscles around my bladder atrophy and I just die in a pool of my own piss? Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. Sorry, diary, I need to go count the visible bones, make sure I'm OK. Maybe I should eat.

OK I'm back. I just spent half an hour trying to eat an apple. God, I'm such a mess. Maybe I'll be able to work up to something bigger. Maybe one day.


End file.
